I've Moved to www.darkridechronicles.com

This blog used to serve as a home site for me, Laura Bradley Rede. I'm a YA writer and the author of The Darkride Chronicles (Darkride and Crossfire) as well as other YA paranormal and contemporary fantasy. As of March 2013, I'm no longer posting here, but you can find me at my new digs, www.darkridechronicles.com, where I've posted tons of extras for The Darkride Chronicles and where I blog regularly. Or find me on my author page on facebook, like the Darkride fan page, or follow me on Twitter. I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks for stopping by!

My Favorite Thanksgiving Memory

One of my favorite childhood memories is from shortly after we adopted my siblings Reina, Marc, Charles and Carolina. It had been less than a year since the awesome foursome had arrived from El Salvador and we were all still adjusting - their adoption had doubled the number of kids in our family to a whopping eight and we still weren't fluent in each others' languages. My mother was feeling understandably overwhelmed, especially because my ER doctor father would have to work Thanksgiving day, so she wisely decided to have a low-key holiday and make a big lasagna instead of the traditional turkey feed.

Half way through cooking, however, she regretted her decision. She started crying, saying that, since it was the kids' first American Thanksgiving, she should have gone traditional and done it up right. She felt like she had really blown it, that the holiday was ruined.

My aunt Mandy showed up around then and, to keep us kids busy, she suggested that we have a talent show. The next thing we knew, my brother Joe (who must have been around eight at the time, the same age my son Harrison is now) had disappeared upstairs and come back with my mom's nylons on his head like a turkey waddle. He proceeded to gargle songs - everything from Christmas carols to Thriller - like a turkey gobbling. We kids were in hysterics. I don't know if I had ever laughed so hard. We were still laughing much later as we ate the world's best lasagna.

If I could ask my mom today, she might still say that Thanksgiving was a holiday fail, but for me it was the best. It isn't about what you eat. It's not about following traditions or making everything perfect. The holidays are about dorking out with your family, because cracking up is what we remember.

Facebook Found Poetry

Hey, look! I did something weird! This morning, as a "warm up" for writing, I decided to create a found poem using only little bits and pieces copied and pasted from Facebook status updates posted by my friends. I only used lines from statuses posted this morning. Each line is from a different friend's update. I added punctuation, and a "but" or "and" here and there to make it make sense, but otherwise left the status lines unchanged. The poem came out sounding sort of creepy and violent, although that wasn't my intention. (Don't judge!) This was a very quick, fun exercise and I highly recommend trying it!

Shipwrecked

Shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods,

Too early, still deranged,
I am going to have to add this to my collection,
section by section, on the bed.
The deceased had knowingly gotten herself into a dangerous situation.
A truly rare event.
I've made a list. A very detailed one!
But the magic is fumbled
Whomp whomp whomp!
An elbow to the nose.
(Let me know if I should be amused or horrified.)
If you were going to buy snake oil,
Show your support!
I know, you can all scream with me!
It's fun to reimagine an old story.

But today is the last day of winter.

Below that water are the streets I grew up on.
If you are the praying type, say a prayer.

Writing Exercise!

So, we've been playing so many fun writing games over on Facebook, but I keep forgetting to post them here! This one is simple: Just go to the Random Name Generator, and generate random names until one of them makes you think of a character. Then tell us a little bit about him or her! For Example: "Penny Tenney owns ten cardingans - one for each day of the week, plus special ones for St Patrick's Day, Christmas, and Valentines Day (although she doesn't wear the one for Valentines Day any more, because it brings back bad memories.) She named her dog Hummel, after the figurines. She is secretly reading Fifty Shades of Grey."

Well, you get the idea! Feel free to post your characters in the comments here if you feel inspired!

Also, a reminder that the Darkride Goodreads Giveaway ends July 4th, so you should enter now for a chance to win one of three signed paperback copies of Darkride! These are some of the first copies with the new cover, and I would love to send one to you! Or, if you prefer an ebook, Darkride is currently only .99 on Amazon and B&N. Happy reading!

What's In A Name? Tips on Naming Characters

Shakespeare said, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet” – but would a character by any other name still be the same person? Recently, I put out a call on the Darkride facebook page, asking readers to suggest a feminine, old fashioned name for a little girl character in Crossfire. Readers came through for me with dozens of suggestion, many sharing the names of their own aunts and grandmas and kids. It made me think about everything that goes into naming a character, so I came up with a list of things for writers to think about as we name the people in our stories:

Does the name fit the character’s personality?

Does the name fit the setting of the story? Is it appropriate to this particular time and place? To the culture the character was born in?

Will readers be able to pronounce it? Some readers are thrown out of a story if the names are too difficult to read. This can be a challenge in fantasy and scifi in particular. A hard to pronounce name may keep a reader from talking about your book with others, or even from bonding properly with a character.

Is the name too similar to other names in the story? Many readers suggested Emily as a name for my little girl character. I loved it, but it was too close to the name of my character Emmie! I try not to even have two characters whose names start with the same letter. I also double check that the name doesn’t rhyme or sound funny with other characters’ names. Having a serious scene between Pat and Matt could be a challenge!

Is the name too close to other well-known names in the genre? Bella is beautiful, for example, but too associated with Twilight. Readers suggested Caroline – another favorite name of mine – but because Caroline is a character on The Vampire Diaries, I crossed it off my list. I also check in with other writers I know before naming a major character, to make sure no one else has claimed that name for their hero or heroine, the same way I might check in with friends and family members before naming a new baby. Names aren’t copyrighted, of course, and with common names there’s bound to be some overlap between books, but writers are very attached to their characters’ names and I don’t want to step on my friends’ toes by taking a name they planned on using. I also don’t want any confusion for readers. If someone says she is Team Ander, I want it to be clear that she is talking about Darkride. Having too many characters with the same first name is like having too many Ellas in a kindergarten class.

Is it the name of someone I know? If it is, are the associations too strong? I need to be able to set that person aside and focus on the character.

What does the name mean? This one is very important to me. I have a shelf full of baby name books and I love to look up meanings. The right meaning can reinforce the theme of a book and reflect a character’s personality. A name with religious connotations – something like Grace, for example - might fit my new little girl character because several Darkride characters are named for Catholic saints and there are religious themes throughout the book. Readers also suggested a flower name like Poppy, Daisy or Lily, which made me think of the scene in Darkride when Cicely says that Ander finds cut flowers depressing. Rose, in particular, made me happy because there are several mentions of roses in Darkride – and in Romeo and Juliet, which plays a big role in the book. Having a name that echoes themes and symbols from other parts of the series makes the book feel more layered, even if I’m the only one who consciously makes the connection.

A few more random tips:

Keep a running list of names you like. Keep a notebook on hand to jot them down.

Collect baby name books. They’re easy to find at yard sales and thrift shops, and you can carry them with you and jot down notes in the margins.

Check out baby name sites, where you can search by culture, time period, meaning, etc.

Collect programs from concerts and performances. You should never borrow an entire first and last name combination exactly, of course, but you may find a great first name here, a great last name there. The program from my daughter’s middle school graduation has provided a lot of inspiration for names appropriate to YA!

Stick around for the credits. Movie credits are a goldmine of names. Pay special attention to the list of “set babies,” children born to the cast and crew during filming, to see what’s popular now. Also, many movie tech people use nicknames, which may get your imagination rolling! I always bring a notebook to the movies!

Pay attention to how other authors use names. Look up the meanings of the names in your favorite books. Pay attention to how the names make you feel. I think the Harry Potter books and the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series are great examples of original names used consciously. What are your favorites?

Play with names! Use a last name as a first name, use initials, change a spelling, give your character a nickname – and keep playing until it feels right. What’s in a name? Whatever you put in there!

photo by Walt Stoneburner

Most of the time you're writing along without a lot of urgency, but some mornings you wake up electric with the knowledge that any characters you don't get out on paper before you die will die with you, and suddenly you are a mother cat trying to save your kittens from a burning building, going in again and again to drag the stories out.

Morbid Thoughts

As someone who writes paranormal, I'll admit that I have a certain morbid curiosity about death. For example, I've written in the past on this site about my fascination with Victorian post-mortem photography. I find it upsetting to look at - particularly because I'm a mom, and so many of the pictures are of children - but at the same time I'm fascinated by the glimpse these pictures give us of an emotional moment in a strangers life. I'm intrigued by what they say about how we deal with death. In some ways, these pictures point up the universal experience of death; the faces of the living mourners in these pictures are  full of the same pain we feel today. But at the same time, they point up how our attitudes towards death have changed dramatically in a very short time. Can you picture any of us today commissioning a photo of a loved one after she died? Can you picture us making cards of the photo to distribute to our friends? I can't help thinking how strange it must have been to live in a time when death was harder to deny.

What prompted this morbid train of thought? I just happened across another site on post-mortem photos, The Skull Illusion, and thought I'd share it with you if you were interested. Just remember that some of these photos are sad and disturbing (I warned you!) Maybe some day I'll write a story about the apprentice of a post-mortem photographer and use some of the things I've learned.

No Birds Were Harmed in the Making of This Post

When I was a little girl, I read a story about a kid who found a wounded baby bird and nursed it back to health. The next day, my mother found me striding out into the woods at my Nana's house with my pockets full of rocks. When she asked me what I was doing, I told her I wanted to take care of an injured baby bird and, since I couldn't find any lying around, I was going to go out an injure one myself.

For years my mother told that story with a little nervous laugh. I think she was afraid that it was evidence that I had some sort of borderline personality disorder, some fundamental lack of compassion, and I admit I can understand why. But I know now that I wasn't desined to grow up to be a sociopath, or even a bird hunter (I'm animal rights! I swear!) I was simply meant to be a writer.

See, that's pretty much what writers do: We go out and find some perfectly good characters and we wound their lives, their situation, in some way so that we can have the experience of nursing them back to health - or, not back to the same "health" they had before, but on to some new health, some new normal, some place a little farther along their path where they are a little bit stronger and wiser than they were when we first took our writer's slingshot and knocked them out of the tree. Cruel? I'm sure it would look that way to anyone who saw me walking into the woods with my rocks, and I'm sure it feels that way to the characters, too. But the truth is, working through that broken situation is the only way the character is going to learn what they need to learn, become the person they need to become. We wound something in their lives to heal something in their souls.

And then we let them fly.

That Moment

"In almost every musical ever written, there's a place in the evening, quite early, when the leading lady sings about what she wants in life, and the audience falls in love with her, and then roots for her to get it for the rest of the night."  - Howard Ashman

I think this is true of most stories, that there is a moment when a character's heart's desire is first revealed and we taste them wanting it and start to want it with them and for them. It's a really magical moment, when the reader starts to commit herself to that character, and as a writer I always want to remember to find that sweet spot where the reader can slip inside and start to fall in love.

Inspiration!

My friend Heidi Randen made this for me. I feel inspired already!